ROLIESTON 


IRELAND  AND  POIAND, 
A  COMPARISON 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


I 


IRELAND 


JAN  2  8 192? 

AND  POLAND 


A  COMPARISON 


BY 


T.  W.   ROLLESTON 

FIRST  HON.  SECRETARY  OF  THE  IRISH  LITERARY  SOCIETY,  LONDON; 

LATE  ASSISTANT  EDITOR  OF  THE  "NEW  IRISH  LIBRARY,"  AND 

CO-EDITOR  OF  "A  TREASURY  OF  IRISH  POETRY*';  AUTHOR 

OF  "MYTHS  AND  LEGENDS  OF  THE  CELTIC  RACE,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  IN  AMERICA  FOR  HODDER  &  STOUGHTON 

MCMXVII 


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IRELAND  AND  POLAND 


THE  United  Kingdom  is  composed  of  four  distinct 
nationalities.  Each  of  these  has  retained  its  own  dis- 
tinct character,  its  own  national  history,  its  own  patriot- 
ism and  self-respect.  Their  affairs,  great  and  small,  gen- 
eral or  local,  are  administered  by  one  Parliament  in 
which  each  is  fully  represented.  A  large  majority  of 
the  Irish  people  have,  however,  asked  that  in  addition  to 
some  representation  in  the  united  Parliament  they  shall 
he  granted  a  local  Parliament  for  the  management  of 
their  own  internal  affairs.  The  fact  that  this  demand, 
which  has  an  important  imperial  as  well  as  local  hear- 
ing, has  not  yet  been  complied  with  has  constantly  been 
used  by  the  enemies  of  the  Entente  Powers  to  represent 
as  false  and  hypocritical  the  claims  of  those  Powers  to 
be  regarded  as  the  champions  of  the  rights  of  small 
nationalities;  and  the  case  of  Ireland  has  been  com- 
pared with  that  of  Prussian  Poland,  as  though  the 
peoples  of  these  two  countries  were  suffering  the  same 
kind  of  oppression,  the  same  injustice,  the  same  denial 
of  the  right  of  every  man  to  live  and  prosper  in  his 
own  land  on  equal  terms  with  his  fellow-citizens  in 
every  other  part  of  the  realm. 

The  best  answer  to  this  charge  is  to  tell  plainly, 
without  contention  or  exaggeration,  what  the  united 
Parliament  has  done  for  Ireland  since  the  beginning 
of  the  period  of  reform  nearly  fifty  years  ago.  That 
is  what  is  here  attempted,  so  far  as  it  can  be  done  in  a 
few  pages.  It  must  be  fully  understood  that  on  the 
Home  Rule  question  the  present  statement  has  no  bear- 
ing whatever.  That  difficult  problem  lies  in  an  alto- 
gether different  sphere  of  politics,  and  must  be  judged 
by  considerations  which  cannot  be  touched  on  here. 
Without,  however,  trenching  in  any  degree  on  con- 

1 


2  IRELAND  AND  POLAND 

troversial  ground,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  crucial 
difficulty  of  the  Home  Rule  question  lies,  and  has  al- 
ways lain,  in  the  fact  that  in  Ireland  a  substantial  and 
important  minority  amounting  to  about  25  per  cent,  of 
the  population,  and  differing  from  the  rest  of  the 
country  in  religion,  national  traditions,  and  economic 
•development,  has  hitherto  been  resolutely  opposed  to 
passing  from  the  immediate  government  of  the  imperial 
Parliament  to  that  of  any  other  body.  This  minority 
being,  for  the  most  part,  grouped  together  in  the  North- 
east counties,  the  late  Government  attempted  to  solve 
the  difficulty  by  offering  immediate  Home  Rule  to  that 
section  of  Ireland  which  desires  it,  while  leaving  the  re- 
mainder as  it  is  until  Parliament  should  otherwise  de- 
cree. This  proposal  was  rejected  by  the  general  opinion 
of  Nationalist  Ireland,  which  was  firmly  opposed  to  the 
partition  of  the  country  for  any  indefinite  period.  The 
question,  therefore,  remains  for  the  present  in  suspense, 
until  a  solution  can  be  found  which  will  not  only  ensure 
the  integrity  and  security  of  the  Empire  but  reconcile 
the  conflicting  desires  and  interests  of  Irishmen  them- 
selves. 

IRELAND  FIFTY  YEARS  AGO 

So  much  to  clear  the  ground  in  regard  to  the  Home 
Rule  controversy.  I  shall  now  ask  the  reader  to  glance 
for  a  moment  at  the  condition  of  Ireland  fifty  years 
ago.  At  that  time  almost  the  whole  agricultural  popula- 
tion were  in  the  position  of  tenants-at-will,  with  no 
security  either  against  increased  rents  or  arbitrary  evic- 
tion. The  housing  of  the  rural  population,  and  es- 
pecially of  the  agricultural  labourers,  was  wretched  in 
the  extreme.  Local  taxation  and  administration  were 
wholly  in  the  hands  of  Grand  Juries,  bodies  appointed 
by  the  Crown  from  among  the  country  gentlemen  in 
each  district.  Irish  Roman  Catholics  were  without  any 
system  of  University  education  comparable  to  that  which 
Protestants  had  enjoyed  for  three  hundred  years  in  the 
University  of  Dublin.  A  Church  which,  whatever  its 
historic  claims  may  have  been,  numbered  only  about 
12  per  cent,  of  the  population  was  established  by  law 


IRELAND  AND  POLAND  3 

and  supported  by  tithes  levied  on  the  whole  country. 
Technical  education  was  inaccessible  to  the  great  bulk 
of  the  nation;  and  in  no  department  of  public  educa- 
tion, of  any  grade  or  by  whomsoever  administered,  was 
any  attention  paid  to  Irish  history,  the  Irish  language, 
Irish  literature,  or  any  subject  which  might  lead  young 
Irishmen  to  a  better  knowledge  and  understanding  of 
the  special  problems  of  their  country  and  its  special 
claims  to  the  love  and  respect  of  its  children. 

That  was  the  Ireland  of  fifty  years  ago.  It  is  an 
Ireland  which  at  the  present  day  lives  only  on  the  lips 
of  anti-British  orators  and  journalists.  It  is  an  Ireland 
as  dead  as  the  France  of  Louis  XIV.  Of  the  abuses  and 
disabilities  just  recounted  not  one  survives  to-day.  The 
measures  by  which  they  have  been  removed  place  to  the 
credit  of  the  United  Kingdom  a  record  of  reform  the 
details  of  which,  for  the  benefit  of  friends  or  foes,  may 
bt)  here  very  briefly  set  down. 

RELIGIOUS  EQUALITY 

In  1869  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  was  dises- 
tablished and  disendowed,  and  is  now — many  Church- 
men believe  to  its  great  spiritual  advantage — on  the 
same  level  as  regards  its  means  of  support  as  every 
other  denomination  in  Ireland.  It  may  be  mentioned 
that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  Ireland  was  long 
in  the  enjoyment  of  a  State  subsidy  for  the  education  of 
its  clergy,  a  subsidy  commuted  in  1869  for  a  capital 
sum  of  £370,000. 

LAND  REFORM 

As  comparisons  have  been  drawn  between  the  sys- 
tems of  government  in  Ireland  and  in  Poland,  let 
us  consider  for  a  moment  the  condition  of  the  Polish 
rural  population  under  German  rule.  It  must  be  noted 
that  the  recent  promises  of  Polish  autonomy  made  by 
Germany — obviously  for  military  and  temporary  rea- 
sons— refer  only  to  those  portions  of  Polish  territory 
held  by  other  States.  No  change  is  to  be  made  in  the 
position  of  Prussian  Poland.  Here,  for  many  years,  it 


4  IRELAND  AND  POLAND 

has  been,  and  still  is,  the  avowed  object  of  the  Prus- 
sian Government  either  to  extirpate  or  forcibly  Teu- 
tonise  this  Slavonic  population,  and  to  replant  the  coun- 
try with  German  colonists.  The  German  Chancellor  in 
1900,  Prince  von  Biilow,  defended  this  anti-Polish  policy 
in  the  cynical  saying  that  "rabbits  breed  faster  than 
hares,"  and  the  meaner  animal,  the  Pole,  must  therefore 
be  drastically  kept  down  in  favour  of  the  German.  Be- 
tween 1886  and  1906  the  Prussian  Government  was 
spending  over  a  million  sterling  a  year  in  buying  out 
Polish  landowners,  great  and  small,  and  planting  Ger- 
mans in  their  stead.  The  measure  proved  futile;  the 
"rabbits"  still  multiplied,  for  the  Poles  bought  land 
from  German  owners  faster  than  the  Government  did 
from  them.  In  1904,  in  order  to  check  the  development 
of  Polish  agriculture  and  land-settlement,  the  Govern- 
ment took  the  extreme  step  of  forbidding  Poles  to  build 
new  farmhouses  without  a  licence.  A  still  more  oppres- 
sive measure  came  in  1908,  when,  in  clear  defiance  of 
the  German  Constitution,  the  Prussian  Government 
actually  took  powers  and  were  voted  funds — from  taxa- 
tion paid  by  Poles  and  Germans  alike — for  the  com- 
pulsory expropriation  of  Polish  owners  against  whom 
nothing  whatever  could  be  alleged  except  their  non- 
German  nationality.  Thes«  powers  have  been  put  into 
operation,  and  every  Pole  in  Prussia  now  holds  his 
patrimony  on  his  own  soil  on  the  sufferance  of  a  Gov- 
ernment which  regards  his  very  existence  as  a  nuisance, 
because  he  occupies  a  place  which  a  German  might  other- 
wise fill. 

During  precisely  the  same  period  the  British  Gov- 
ernment in  Ireland  has  been  bending  the  wealth  and 
credit  of  the  United  Kingdom  to  objects  precisely  the 
reverse.  Ireland,  owing  to  the  wars  and  confiscations 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  had  come  to  have  a  land- 
owning aristocracy  mainly  of  English  descent  with  a 
Celtic  peasantry  holding  their  farms  as  yearly  tenants. 
The  object  of  British  land-legislation  has  been  to  ex- 
propriate the  landlords,  so  far  as  their  tenanted  land 
is  concerned,  and  to  establish  the  Irish  peasant  as  ab- 
solute owner  of  the  land  he  tills.  The  Irish  tenant  is 


IRELAND  AND  POLAND  5 

now  subject  only  to  rents  fixed  by  law;  he  can  at  any 
time  sell  the  interest  in  his  farm,  which  he  has,  there- 
fore, a  direct  interest  in  improving;  he  is  also  assisted 
by  a  great  scheme  of  land-purchase  to  become  owner  of 
his  land  on  paying  the  price  by  terminable  instalments, 
which  are  usually  some  20  per  cent,  less  than  the  amount 
he  formerly  paid  as  rent.  Under  this  scheme  about  two- 
thirds  of  the  Irish  tenantry  have  already  become  owners 
of  their  farms,  while  the  remainder  enjoy  a  tenure 
which  is  almost  as  easy  and  secure  as  ownership  itself. 
It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  a  German  economist  who 
has  made  a  special  study  of  this  subject  should  declare 
that  "the  Irish  tenants  have  had  conditions  assured  to 
them  more  favourable  than  any  other  tenantry  in  the 
world  enjoy";  adding  the  dry  comment  that  in  Ireland 
the  "magic  of  property"  appears  to  consist  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  cheaper  to  acquire  it  than  not.*  That  magic 
has  been  worked  for  Ireland  by  the  British  Legislature 
and  by  British  credit.  As  in  Prussia,  compulsory  powers 
(limited  by  certain  conditions  and  to  certain  districts) 
stand  behind  the  schemes  of  the  Government;  but  the 
compulsion  is  exercised  not  against  the  Irishman  in 
favour  of  the  English  settler,  but  against  the  (usually) 
English  landlord  in  favour  of  the  Irish  tenant.  The 
State  is  now  pledged  to  about  £130,000,000  for  the 
furtherance  of  this  scheme,  the  instalments  and  sinking 
fund  to  the  amount  of  about  £5,000,000  a  year  being 
paid  with  exemplary  regularity  by  the  farmers  who  have 
taken  advantage  of  it. 

THE  CONGESTED  DISTRICTS  BOARD 

In  the  poorer  and  more  backward  regions  of  the 
"West  it  has  been  felt  that  the  above  measures  are  not 
enough,  and  a  special  agency  has  been  constituted  with 
very  wide  powers  to  help  the  Western  farmer,  and  not 
only  the  farmer,  but  the  fisherman,  the  weaver,  or  any- 
one pursuing  a  productive  occupation  there,  to  make 

*  Professor  M.  Bonn,  of  Munich  University.  ' '  Modern  Ireland 
and  her  Agrarian  Problem,"  pp.  151,  162,  translated  from  "Die 
irische  Agrarfrage. "  Archiv  fur  Sosialwissenschaft;  Mohr,  Tu- 
bingen. 


6  IRELAND  AND  POLAND 

the  most  of  his  resources  and  to  develop  his  industry  in 
the  best  possible  way.  This  Board  commands  a  statutory 
endowment  of  £231,000  a  year.  A  system  of  light  rail- 
ways which  now  covers  these  remote  districts  has  given 
new  and  valuable  facilities  for  the  marketing  of  fish 
and  every  kind  of  produce. 

The  various  Boards  and  other  agencies  by  which 
these  measures  are  carried  into  execution  are  manned 
almost  exclusively  by  Irishmen. 

THE  AGRICULTURAL.  LABOURER 

There  is  a  world  of  difference  between  the  present 
lot  of  the  Irish  agricultural  labourer  and  his  condi- 
tion in  1883,  when  reform  in  this  department  was  first 
taken  in  hand.  Cottages  can  now  be  provided  by  the 
Rural  District  Councils  and  let  at  nominal  rents. 
Nearly  nine  millions  sterling  have  been  voted  for  this 
purpose  at  low  interest,  with  sinking  fund,  and  up  to 
the  present  date  47,000  cottages  have  been  built,  each 
with  its  plot  of  land,  while  several  thousand  more  are 
sanctioned. 

Of  the  results  of  the  Labourers'  Act  a  recent  observer 
writes : — 

"The  Irish  agricultural  labourer  can  now  obtain  a 
cottage  with  three  rooms,  a  piggery,  and  garden  allot- 
ment of  an  acre  or  half  an  acre,  and  for  this  he  is 
charged  a  rent  of  one  to  two  shillings  a  week.  .  .  , 
These  cottages  by  the  wayside  give  a  hopeful  aspect 
to  the  country,  .  .  .  flowers  are  before  the  doors  of 
the  new  cottages  and  creepers  upon  the  walls.  The 
labourer  can  keep  pigs,  poultry,  and  a  goat,  and  grow 
his  potatoes  and  vegetables  in  his  garden  allotment."  * 

LOCAL  GOVERNMENT 

In  1898  a  Local  Government  Bill  was  passed  for  Ire- 
land which  placed  the  administration  of  the  poor  law 
and  other  local  affairs  for  rural  districts  on  the  same 

*Padraic  Colum:     "My  Irish  Year,"  pp.  18,  19. 


IRELAND  AND  POLAND  7 

footing  as  in  England.  The  rule  of  the  Grand  Juries, 
which  had  lasted  for  two  and  a  half  centuries,  and 
which  had,  on  the  whole,  carried  on  local  affairs  with 
credit  and  success,  was  now  entirely  swept  away,  and 
elected  bodies  were  placed  in  full  control  of  local  taxa- 
tion, administration,  and  patronage.  In  the  case  of  the 
larger  towns  free  municipal  institutions  had  already 
existed  for  some  sixty  years.  In  these  the  franchise 
was  now  reduced,  and  is  wide  enough  both  in  town  and 
country  to  admit  every  class  of  the  population.  Since 
1899  the  new  elective  bodies  have  had  important  duties 
to  fulfil  in  regard  to  the  development  of  agriculture 
and  technical  instruction. 


THE  DEPARTMENT  OP  AGRICULTURE  AND  TECHNICAL  IN- 
STRUCTION 

This  new  Irish  Department  of  State  grew  out  of  a 
demand  formulated  after  long  inquiry  and  discussion 
by  a  voluntary  Irish  committee  representing  both  Union- 
ist and  Nationalist  opinion.  It  was  established  in  1899, 
and  now  commands  the  large  endowment  of  £197,000  a 
year,  with  a  capital  sum  of  over  £200,000.  The  annual 
endowment  is  clear  of  all  charges  for  offices  and  staff, 
which  are  on  the  Civil  Service  Estimates.  Its  head 
is  a  Minister  responsible  to  Parliament,  but  associated 
with  him  are  Boards  of  Agriculture  and  Technical  In- 
struction, two-thirds  of  which  are  elected  respectively  by 
County  and  Borough  Councils.  Without  their  concur- 
rence no  expenditure  can  be  undertaken,  and  local  work 
is  largely  carried  on  through  committees  appointed  by 
these  Councils.  The  people  at  large  are  therefore  inti- 
mately and  responsibly  associated  with  the  work  of  the 
Department,  the  annual  meetings  of  which  form  a  kind 
of  industrial  Parliament,  where  the  whole  economic  or- 
ganisation of  Ireland  can  be  reviewed,  debated,  and  de- 
veloped. The  Department  works  by  teaching,  by  in- 
quiry, by  experiment,  and  has  an  immense  field  of 
activity  in  dealing  with  cattle  diseases,  the  improve- 
ment of  stock,  the  control  of  creameries,  the  marketing 
of  produce,  etc.  It  has  also  brought  facilities  for  techni- 


8  IRELAND  AND  POLAND 

cal  instruction  into  every  important  centre  of  popula- 
tion. 

UNIVERSITY  EDUCATION 

This  important  question  was  settled  in  1908  by  the 
foundation  of  a  new  University,  the  "National  Uni- 
versity," with  its  central  authority  in  Dublin  and  col- 
leges in  Dublin  (the  old  Catholic  University  of  which 
Cardinal  Newman  was  rector),  in  Cork,  and  in  Gal- 
way.  The  University  is  open  to  all  creeds,  and  may  not 
impose  religious  tests  upon  its  students,  but  its  govern- 
ment is  mainly  in  the  hands  of  the  Eoman  Catholic 
hierarchy,  and  it  is  accepted  as  a  fair  settlement  of  the 
question  of  Catholic  higher  education  in  Ireland.  In 
the  management  of  its  internal  affairs,  the  appointment 
of  professors,  the  selection  of  textbooks,  etc.,  the  Na- 
tional University  is  wholly  autonomous  and  free  from 
Government  interference.  One  of  its  most  remarkable 
features  is  that  the  Irish  language  has  been  made  an 
obligatory  subject  for  matriculation.  The  endowment 
of  the  University,  with  its  constituent  colleges,  amounts 
to  £74,000  a  year,  and  it  was  voted  a  capital  sum  for 
building  and  equipment  of  £170,000.  It  need  hardly  be 
said  that  no  parallel  to  this  institution  exists  in  Prus- 
sian Poland. 


LANGUAGE  AND  NATIVE  CULTURE 

In  this  as  in  other  respects  a  comparison  with  the 
theory  and  practice  of  German  administration  may  help 
to  place  the  policy  of  the  United  Kingdom  in  its  proper 
light.  When  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  1815,  Prussia 
definitely  acquired  her  present  share  of  Polish  territory, 
King  Friedrich  Wilhelm  III  promised  for  himself  and 
his  successors,  "on  my  kingly  word,"  that  the  Poles 
should  have  religious  freedom,  the  use  of  the  Polish 
language  in  administration,  in  the  Law  Courts  and  in 
the  schools,  and  be  in  all  respects  on  an  equality  with 
their  German  fellow-citizens.  We  have  already  seen 
how  these  promises  were  kept  in  regard  to  the  vital 


IRELAND  AND  POLAND  9 

question  of  the  ownership  of  land.  They  have  been  no 
less  flagrantly  broken  in  regard  to  the  national  language. 
The  use  of  Polish  is  strictly  prohibited  at  all  public 
meetings.  No  Polish  deputy  to  the  Reichstag  may  ad- 
dress his  constituents  in  the  only  language  they  under- 
stand. Since  1873  German  alone  may  be  taught  in  the 
national  schools.  The  language  of  instruction  must 
be  German  wherever  half  the  pupils  are  capable  of  un- 
derstanding it,  and  after  1928  it  is  decreed  that  no  other 
language  must  be  heard  in  the  schoolroom.  A  decree 
of  1899  forbids  teachers  to  use  Polish  even  in  their 
own  family  circles.  Anyone  who  is  caught  teaching 
Polish,  even  gratuitously,  is  punished  by  fine  or  im- 
prisonment. Polish  literature  found  in  the  houses  of 
private  persons  is  confiscated,  and  its  possessors  im- 
prisoned, if  the  police  consider  it  to  bear  the  least  trace 
of  any  propagandist  character.* 

All  this,  it  will  be  seen,  is  merely  the  drastic  execu- 
tion of  the  policy  laid  down  by  Treitschke,  the  prophet 
of  modern  Germany,  and  more  recently  urged  by  the 
most  popular  living  representative  of  Prussian  ideals, 
H.  S.  Chamberlain. 

"There  is,"  writes  Chamberlain,  ''no  task  before 
us  so  important  as  that  of  forcing  the  German 
language  on  the  world  (die  deutsche  Sprache  der 
Welt  aufzuzwingen.)"  The  German  has  "a  twofold 
duty"  laid  on  him:  "never  must  a  German  abandon 
his  own  speech,  neither  he  nor  his  children 's  children ; 
and  in  every  place,  at  every  time,  he  must  remember 
to  compel  others  to  use  it  until  it  has  triumphed 
everywhere  as  the  German  Army  has  done  in  war. 
...  So  far  as  the  German  Empire  extends,  the 
clergy  must  preach  in  German  alone,  in  German  alone 
the  teacher  must  give  his  lessons.  .  .  .  Mankind  must 
be  made  to  understand  that  anyone  who  cannot  speak 
German  is  a  pariah,  "f 

*  ' '  The  Evolution  of  Modern  Germany, ' '  by  W.  H.  Dawson, 
brings  together  in  its  twenty-third  chapter  most  of  the  facts  relat- 
ing to  this  question.  See  especially  a  letter  from  a  prominent 
member  of  the  Polish  aristocracy  quoted  on  p.  475. 

f  "  Kriegsauf  satze, "  1914. 


10  IRELAND  AND  POLAND 

Such  are  the  ideals  and  such  the  practice  of  the  peo- 
ple whom  Roger  Casement  and  one  or  two  other  en- 
thusiasts for  Gaelic  culture  in  Ireland  have  sought  to 
make  the  dominant  power  in  that  country,  because  it 
will  rid  them  of  "English"  rule. 

Let  us  now  see  what  "English"  rule  (it  is  not  really 
English  at  all,  but  the  rule  of  the  United  Kingdom) 
is  actually  like  in  regard  to  this  particular  subject.  Up 
to  the  decade  1830-40  it  may  be  said  that  the  Irish 
language  was  spoken  by  fully  half  the  population  of 
Ireland.  No  restrictive  measures  were  in  force  against 
it.  But  during  that  decade  a  general  system  of  elemen- 
tary education  was  introduced,  and  in  the  Board  Schools 
the  language  withered  away  with  astonishing  rapidity. 
At  the  last  census  (1911)  only  16,000  persons  were  re- 
corded as  speaking  Irish  alone,  while  the  number  of 
those  who  knew  anything  of  the  languajp  was  only 
about  13  per  cent,  of  the  population.  Whether  this 
change  was  a  blessing  or  a  bane  to  Ireland  is  a  subject 
which  is  outside  the  range  of  thjs  discussion,  but  what- 
ever it  was  the  Irish  people  themselves  had  a  full  share 
of  responsibility  for  the  result.  "With  scarcely  an  ex- 
ception, the  abandonment  of  Irish  was  approved  by  the 
clergy,  the  political  leaders,  and  the  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple. "The  killing  of  the  language,"  writes  Dr.  Douglas 
Hyde,  "took  place  under  the  eye  of  O'Connell  and  the 
Parliamentarians,  and,  of  course,  under  the  eye  and 
with  the  sanction  of  the  Catholic  priesthood  and  prel- 
ates. .  .  .  From  a  complexity  of  causes  which  I  am 
afraid  to  explain,  the  men  who  for  the  last  sixty  years 
have  had  the  ear  of  the  Irish  race  have  persistently 
shown  the  cold  shoulder  to  everything  that  was  Irish 
and  racial."*  Their  attitude  is  easily  understood. 
Irish  had  long  ceased  to  be  used  for  literary  purposes. 
No  Irish  newspapers,  no  Irish  books  were  printed ; 
English  was  regarded  as  the  only  available  key  to  the 
world  of  modern  culture,  and  Ireland  became  an 

*  "Beside  the  Fire,"  pp.  xliii,  xliv  (1890).  Dr.  Hyde  was  the 
first  president  of  the  Gaelic  League,  and  is  now  Professor  of  Mod- 
ern Irish  in  the  National  University. 


IRELAND  AND  POLAND  11 

English-speaking  country  without  a  struggle  and  almost 
without  a  regret. 

In  the  early  'nineties,  however,  a  popular  movement 
took  shape  for  the  rescue  of  what  still  remained  of  the 
language  and  for  its  restoration,  so  far  as  was  prac- 
tically possible.  Classes  for  the  study  of  Irish  were 
formed  all  over  the  country,  folk-tales  were  collected, 
MSS.  of  half-forgotten  poets  were  disinterred  and 
edited,  the  first  scholarly  and  adequate  dictionary  of 
modern  Irish  was  compiled,*  and  plays,  poems,  and 
stories  began  to  be  written  in  the  re-discovered  language. 
These  activities  were  mostly  organised  and  directed  by 
the  Gaelic  League,  a  body  founded  in  1893.  One  can 
easily  imagine  how  a  Prussian  Government  would  have 
dealt  with  such  a  movement,  especially  as  a  certain  dis- 
affected element  in  the  country  immediately  began  to 
make  use  of  it  for  its  own  ends.  The  British  Gov- 
ernment looked  on  not  only  calmly  but  approvingly. 
When  a  general  demand  arose  for  the  effective  teach- 
ing of  Irish  in  the  elementary  schools — though  at  this 
time  only  about  21,000  old  people  were  recorded  in  the 
census  as  ignorant  of  English — it  was  at  once  agreed 
to.  Irish  had  been  permitted  and  paid  for,  though  not 
markedly  encouraged,  since  1879.  It  was  now  placed  on 
a  list  of  subjects  which  might  be  taught  in  school  hours, 
and  extra  fees  were  allotted  for  teaching  it  at  the  rate 
of  ten  shillings  per  pupil — twice  the  amount  allowred  for 
French,  Latin,  or  music.  Grants  are  also  made  to  cer- 
tain colleges  where  teachers  of  the  language  can  be 
trained.  All  this  began  in  1901,  and  since  that  time 
over  £12,000  a  year  has  been  paid  for  Irish  teaching 
directly  from  Imperial  funds — about  twice  the  amount 
collected  in  the  same  period  by  voluntary  contributions 
from  Ireland  and  the  rest  of  the  world.  Nor  is  this  the 
limit  of  the  grant ;  it  is  limited  only  by  the  willingness 
of  school  managers  and  parents  to  make  use  of  it.  In- 
directly, the  State  is  paying  much  more,  for  the  various 
professorships  and  lectureships  in  Irish  subjects — lan- 
guage, history,  archaeology,  and  economics — established 

*  By  the  Eev.  P.  S.  Dineen ;  published  by  the  Irish  Texts  So- 
ciety. 


12  IRELAND  AND  POLAND 

under  the  National  University  account  for  well  over 
£3,500  a  year.  Taking  the  direct  expenditure  on  ele- 
mentary education  alone,  the  State  has  paid  for  Irish 
teaching  since  1879  a  sum  of  no  less  than  £209,000.  It 
may  therefore  be  claimed  that  in  cultivating  her  ancient 
language  and  native  traditions,  Ireland  enjoys  the  fair- 
est and  most  liberal  treatment  ever  accorded  to  a  small 
nationality  incorporated  in  a  great  Empire. 

REFORMS  AND  THEIR  RESULTS 

On  the  reforms  which  have  been  thus  briefly  sketched, 
one  or  two  general  remarks  may  be  in  place. 

It  has  sometimes  been  contended  that  except  by  vio- 
lence, or  the  menace  of  violence,  Ireland  has  never  ob- 
tained anything  from  the  English  Legislature.  It  would 
be  truer  to  say  that  she  has  never  obtained  anything  at 
all.  England  is  not  a  sovereign  Power,  and  does  not 
administer  Irish  affairs,  nor  even  her  own.  What  has 
been  gained  has  been  gained  from  the  Legislature  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  in  which  Irishmen,  like  every  other 
race  inhabiting  that  kingdom,  have  had  their  full  share 
of  representation  and  of  influence.  And  if  in  Ireland, 
as  in  other  countries,  the  necessity  of  reform  has  some- 
times been  made  evident  by  disorder,  it  is  wholly  untrue 
to  say  that  this  has  been  always  or  even  usually  the  case. 
Land-reform  in  its  earliest  stages,  like  trade  unionism 
in  England,  was  accompanied  by  disorder.  But  the 
greatest  measure  of  Irish  land-reform — the  Wyndham 
Act  of  1903 — was  worked  out  on  Irish  soil  by  peaceable 
discussion  among  the  parties  concerned,  and  Parliament 
acted  at  once  upon  their  joint  demand.  It  was  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  way  that  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
came  into  being;  nor  did  the  great  measures  of  Local 
Government,  of  University  education  for  Catholics,  of 
the  Labourers'  Acts,  or  the  recognition  extended  to  the 
Gaelic  movement,  owe  their  origin  to  any  other  cause 
than  the  wholesome  influences  of  reason  and  goodwill. 

The  internal  condition  of  Ireland  already  shows  a 
marked  response  to  the  altered  state  of  things.  It  is 
visible,  as  many  travellers  have  noticed,  in  the  face  of 


IRELAND  AND  POLAND  13 

the  country;  it  is  proved  by  official  records  and  statis- 
tics. Emigration  has  declined  to  its  lowest  point;  edu- 
cation has  spread  amongst  the  people.  Irish  emigrants, 
when  they  do  leave  their  own  shores,  take  higher  posi- 
tions than  ever  before.  A  population  of  some  four  mil- 
lions, largely  composed  of  small  farmers,  has  lent  forty- 
seven  millions  sterling  to  the  Government;  and,  what  is 
still  more  significant,  the  deposits  in  Post  Office  Savings 
Banks  have  risen  from  six  millions  in  1896  to  over  thir- 
teen millions  the  year  before  the  war.  The  new  "War 
Loan  is  reported  to  have  had  an  extraordinary  success 
in  Ireland.  On  the  last  day  of  subscription  a  single 
Dublin  bank  took  in  one  million  sterling.*  With  some 
self-appointed  champions  of  Ireland  abuse  of  the  British 
Empire  is  a  very  popular  amusement,  but  the  Irish 
farmer  and  the  Irish  trader  put  their  money  in  it,  and 
with  it  they  stand  to  win  or  lose. 

Irish  agriculture,  partly  owing  to  climatic  conditions 
and  partly  to  the  fact  that  Ireland  has  a  monopoly  of 
the  export  of  live  cattle  to  England,  has  developed 
hitherto  rather  in  the  direction  of  cattle-raising  than 
of  tillage ;  and  cattle  have  increased  since  1851  from 
three  million  to  over  five  million  head,  and  sheep  from 
two  millions  to  three  million  six  hundred  thousand. 
Poultry  have  nearly  quadrupled  in  the  same  period. 
The  gross  railway  receipts — another  significant  symp- 
tom—were £2,750,000  in  1886.  In  1915  they  had  risen 
to  £4,831,000.  The  co-operative  agricultural  associa- 
tions, in  which  Ireland  has  shown  the  way  to  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world,  now  number  about  1,000,  and  do  a 
trade  of  well  over  five  millions  a  year.  The  thousands 
of  labourers'  cottages  which  have  sprung  up,  each  with 
its  plot  of  land,  have  been  to  the  Irish  labourers  what 
the  Land  Acts  have  been  to  the  farmer — they  have  com- 
pletely transformed  his  economic  status  in  the  country. 

Accompanying  these  symptoms  of  material  progress, 
we  have  witnessed  in  recent  years  a  striking  outburst  of 
intellectual  activity.  Irish  literature,  in  poetry  and 
drama,  has  attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole  world  of 
culture,  and  exact  and  scholarly  research  in  history 

*  The  Times,  Feb.  17,  1917. 


_J 

14  IRELAND  AND  POLAND 

and  archseology  have  flourished  and  found  audiences 
as  they  were  never  known  to  do  in  Ireland  till  now. 
This  has  not  been  the  work  of  any  one  section  of  the 
people,  either  in  creed  or  in  politics;  but  the  whole 
movement  has   been   inspired   by   an   Irish   patriotis- 
which  no  sane  person  regards  as  conflicting  in  any  d 
gree  with  allegiance  to  the  Empire  under  the  shelter  r:i- 
which  it  has  grown  and  prospered. 

The  circumstances  above  set  forth  do  not  pretend  \ 
be  the  whole  story  about  modern  Ireland,  nor  do  the 
show  that  the  millennium  has  arrived  in  that  countr 
Apart  from  Home  Rule,  which  is  outside  our  presei 
field,  much  still  remains  to  be  done — there  is  elementar 
education  to  be  advanced,  commercial  facilities  to  l^ 
developed,  land-purchase  to  be  completed.  But  it  :|i 
contended  that  the  real  facts  about  Ireland  are  wholl 
and  absurdly  inconsistent  with  the  picture  of  that  cour 
try  which  the  friends  of  Germany  circulate  so  indui 
triously  at  the  present  time.  Ireland  is  not  an  05 
pressed  and  plundered  nation,  ground  under  the  heel  o 
a  foreign  Power,  and  with  her  individual  life  delibei 
ately  stifled  like  that  of  Poland  in  the  German  Empir< 
Only  through  ignorance  or  malice  could  such  an  illusio: 
gain  currency,  and  it  needs  only  the  touch  of  reality- 
reality  which  every  one  can  easily  see  or  verify  for  him 
self — to  dispel  it  for  ever  from  the  mind  of  every  car 
did  inquirer. 


A    An •!  '••'"lllililiiillllli  Iliillj 


